Nuzlocke: Random Oneshots of Random
by mangaluva
Summary: Better title may later be applied. A random selection of oneshots set in my Nuzlocke universe (After Armageddon, Blood and Bond). Third posted: I Should Not Type At Midnight
1. By The Water

_This story is set seventeen or so years before the events of FR, when everything is still steadily going to hell in a handbasket in Kanto… but not in this little fairy tale, which is a Christmas present for my most fabulous muse, Key. Without her, most of these fics would not exist. Merry Christmas, Key-chan!_

_This story features a Togetic called Tashigi and a little boy, both of whom will be relevant in later fics. (I'm sorry if I've gotten Tashigi wrong, Key; I realized that I didn't have a very clear image of her personality in my head while writing this, but I didn't want to ask you about her in case I spoiled that this fic was happening T_T)_

"Hello, little one."

The child looked up. A white Pokémon was fluttering over the water in front of him. It had a round body with funny red and blue shapes on it, and really tiny white wings, and a pointy white head. It was almost as tall as he was, and he was four already so he was a big tall boy. Not as tall as his daddy or his big brother, but one day, when he grew up…

"That's still a long way away, though. A little boy like you shouldn't be out here alone."

The boy frowned. "You're talking," he said. "Pokémon don't talk. They just make noises."

"Most humans will just hear noises when I talk, but not you." The white Pokémon fluttered over to him where he sat by the side of the lake, hovering over the water in front of him. "Not little children like you."

"Are you a wild Pokémon?" the boy asked. "Mummy says wild Pokémon are dangerous, and aren't friendly much to humans anymore, and that they'll eat me up. Could you eat me up? You're littler than me. I don't think you could."

"I wouldn't," the white Pokémon said. She had a nice, soft voice that made the boy feel happy and safe. "I'm a Togetic. I'd never harm a child."

"Gran told me that Togetic live in forests an' when kids get lost, they lead 'em home," the boy said. "D'you live in a forest?"

"I live by this lake, protecting children from drowning," the Togetic said, dangling her long, round feet in the water. "I'm not sure that I'd have to save _you_, though. The water likes you."

The boy laughed. "I promise I won't drown," he said. "Daddy taught me all about swimming, an' I can hold my breath for a real long time, an' anyways Daddy's got all sorts of water Pokémon and they'd come get me if I got _really_ stuck. Daddy's got the _best_ water Pokémon. Water Pokémon are really cool, I think. Are you a water Pokémon?"

"I'm not," the Togetic said, shaking her head.

"Well, I think you're cool anyway, saving other kids who don't have daddies with water Pokémon," the boy said, reaching out to the Togetic. She held his hand. It made him feel warm. "D'you ever get lonely up here? There's not lots of people living here. I bet there's not lots of kids to save."

"There aren't," the Togetic agreed quietly. "Very few humans live around here now, and not many with children. I do so miss getting to play with human children. You're the first one I've seen in a long time."

"D'you wanna be my friend?" the boy asked, stepping into the shallows of the lake, still holding Tashigi's hand. "Then we can play _all_ the time, forever an' ever!"

"You won't be a child forever," Tashigi laughed.

"Yeah, but then I'll be a grownup, an' I can have my own kids for you to play with!" the boy declared. "An' I _won't_ make them go to bed early or eat yucky food or be too much older than their little brothers! My brother's _basically_ a grownup already, so he won't always play with me," he whispered to Tashigi. "So I'll play with you all the time instead!"

"I like you, little one," Tashigi laughed, fluttering her wings and flying into the air. The boy screeched with laughter as he was lifted up too, flying a couple of feet above the lake.

"Wheeee!" he cried. "Awesome! Can you go higher!"

"Not today," Tashigi said, setting him down. "Your parents are calling for you. I can hear them. They're worried about you."

"Awww… they're gonna be mad that I ran off," the boy said dejectedly, scuffing his feet on the ground. Then he hugged Tashigi. "But they won't mind when they see how cool you are! C'mon, Tashigi! I want Mummy and Daddy to meet my new best friend! An' I wanna show you off to my brother…"

_I hope you liked my vision of how they met :) Merry Christmas! _


	2. Flying

_This oneshot is set sometime between the events of FR and SS, with Hernan, Carrie and Tobias living in Lavender together and Tobias learning to use his powers. For my beta, Jack Falconer, without whom my attempts at fic would be an incomprehensible mess, and who thinks Toby is awesome :) Merry Christmas!_

Today, Tobias wanted to know what was on the other end of the bridges.

"What's there? How long is it to go there? Is it cool? Is it?" he asked. They were sitting and eating breakfast with all of the Marowak and Cubone, some kind of vine that grew all over the Tower. Tobias liked the leaves much better than the vine, because they were sweeter.

Mummy and Daddy looked at each other. "I'll take him," Daddy said. "You have two funerals today."

"Work, work, work…" Mummy said. She picked up Tobias and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Toby, you stay close to Daddy and be good today, okay?"

"Okay!" Tobias said happily. "Tell the dead people goodbye for me!"

"I'll tell their families that they have your condolences," Mummy promised.

"Con-doe-lense-sis…" Tobias said. "What's that? Where is it? Do I need to go get it for you to give it to them?"

"It means that you're very sorry for their loss," Daddy said, picking up Tobias and walking away from breakfast. "It's a nice thing to say to someone whose friend has just died. Say 'you have my condolences'."

"You have my con-do-lences," Tobias repeated carefully. "'Kay. Well, they do. Can we go see the bridges now? What's a bridge anyway? Camilla an' Carlotta an' Carol were talking about the bridges an' how you shouldn't fall off…" He kept asking questions while Daddy carried him past all the human homes and out of Lavender. Daddy didn't answer all of Tobias' questions, but Tobias didn't notice the ones he skipped because he had more questions. Tobias was only little and didn't know much, so he always had more questions.

"Here we go," Daddy said, walking onto some wood that was lying on the ground. "These are the bridges." He set Tobias down on the wood, but kept one hand on Tobias' back while he walked around, looking curiously at the old wood. Daddy gripped Tobias' arm suddenly as Tobias got to the edge of the wood. "Be careful, Toby. You'll fall into the water."

"Water?" Tobias gasped as he looked over the edge of the wood and realized that it wasn't on the ground, it was on the water, more water than he'd seen since they were on the islands. It wasn't nice water like there, though; it was dark and murky and smelled funny. "Ew… what's wrong with the water?"

"It's poisoned, Toby, and it'll make you very sick if you get in it, so don't," Daddy said, looking around. Whenever Tobias left town with Mummy or Daddy, they were always looking around for other humans or Pokémon. Outside of Lavender, Mummy had warned him, other Pokémon might try to _eat_ you, so Tobias wasn't allowed to leave Lavender without Mummy or Daddy. Tobias wasn't frightened of other Pokémon. Mummy and Daddy were strong enough to fight _anything_.

Besides, Tobias had powers too. "Daddy, can't we make the water better?" he asked. "If the water's sick, can't it get better? Like how people get better when they're sick?"

"Not everyone does," Daddy said, looking back at Lavender. "Do you want to walk along the bridges a little way?"

"Yeah!" Tobias said excitedly. He got to walk so long as he promised to keep close to Daddy. He liked getting to walk and use his little legs. When he wasn't walking, he was being carried by Mummy or Daddy, which he also liked. There were a lot of things that Tobias liked. Happiness was his forte.

He wasn't even scared when several Krabby suddenly scuttled up from the water and surrounded them on the bridge. He'd seen Krabby before, and Daddy could fight them _easy_.

"Look at the size of this one!" one of the Krabby said, peering up at Daddy.

"I'm so hungry I could eat him whole," another one said.

"Don't you dare, there's enough for everyone to have a bit," a third said, snapping at Daddy's ankle. That was the first one to receive an electric fist to the head. Daddy picked up Tobias and held him in one hand while fighting off the Krabby with the other. He never hurt them enough to kill them, just enough to send them running away. Tobias giggled; they looked funny, trying to quickly skitter away sideways.

Then a big one got Daddy's ankle hard again and Daddy stumbled backwards. Tobias suddenly fell out of Daddy's hand and into the water.

It didn't feel like proper water; it was oily, and when Tobias opened his mouth it tasted nasty. He couldn't _breathe_. He couldn't swim, so he reached for his _power_, the light that filled up his shell and tried to find a power that would _work_…

His hands turned briefly to vines, lashed out through the water and then turned to hands again. Little fireballs tried to blaze and were snuffed out by the water. Tobias was jerked back and forth by various bursts of power, but nothing took him above the water. He tried again and again, and then…

He suddenly shot straight up. He soared out of the water, above the bridges, and straight up into the sky...

"_Woooooow_," he breathed. He was so high up that the _Tower_ was below him, and the Tower was the biggest, highest thing around, except for the mountains, which didn't count because they were part of the ground. The Tower was _made_, and it was _huge_, and Tobias was _above_ it. He could see all around, the fields of coarse grass and the mountain ledges with some of the really _old_ graves and the big group of people and Pokémon at a funeral, and he could feel wind under his wings…

Then the wings were gone, the brief burst of power was done, and Tobias was falling. "Wheeee!" he cried laughing in exhilaration as the wind rushed past him. Daddy came into view, his arms outstretched, and Tobias seemed to naturally fall into them. Daddy fell backwards onto the wood.

"Oooof," he gasped, wrapping his arms around Tobias. "Are you… okay, Toby?"

"That was fun!" Tobias laughed, hugging Daddy. "I wanna do it again!"

"Better not, Toby," Daddy said, slowly getting up. "I don't think I can take another Fly attack like that!"

"Aww…" Tobias settled down to be carried back home by Daddy. "It was _fun,_ though."

"I'm just glad you're okay, Toby," Daddy sighed. He sounded scared. Tobias wasn't sure why. Those Krabby hadn't been scary at all, and flying had been _fun_.

That afternoon, he kept trying to get Fly again, until he got Bullet Seed instead and very nearly hit the attendants of the second funeral. Then Mummy made him stop. Still, he decided to keep trying, until some day he got to Fly again.

_I hope you enjoyed! This Chrismas 'tis clearly the season of Toge-love. Merry Christmas!_


	3. Typo Triad

_Warning for a high level of crack. Canon to my Nuzlockeverse except it's not really at all. _

{}

"Who are you, anyway?" Saylee demanded.

"Ghetsis is gone," one of the triad said, putting their hands on their siblings' shoulders. "What use is there now?"

"You're right," a second agreed. "On three?"

"One," the third said. All three reached one hand behind their heads to where their masks were tied. "Two." All three reached up with their other hand to dig under the front of their hair. "Three!"

White wigs and black masks were flung aside and Saylee found herself staring at three identical faces. Three _familiar_ identical faces.

"_Lance_?!" she said in shock, looking from one to the other.

"That would be me," the one on the far left said, brushing his hair aside to reveal a nasty blunt trauma scar. He swished aside his skintight black clothing, revealing that he somehow had a suit and cape on underneath. "And you've actually met Lace, in Blackthorn."

"Greetings," said the one on the far right, swishing aside his ninja costume to reveal a suit and a lacy white cape. He had a similar burn scar on his forehead. "And you may or may not have met our sister Lane…"

"You're a girl?" Blue said in surprise, staring at the perfectly identical third sibling. She _hmphed_ and removed her skintight (_to a definitely male body, what the hell_?) clothes to reveal that she was wearing a deep red cape and a suit which was most definitely not hiding her large feminine attributes

"Is that even physically possible?!" Saylee yelled, staring from the tight black clothes lying on the ground to the huge clothing and in one case anatomy that the triplets in front of her were sporting.

"We're ninjas," Lane said.

"We can fit infinite mass under our clothing," Lance agreed.

"And now we're on dragons," Lace said as they released three Dragonite. "TYPO TRIAD, AWAY!"

Saylee and Blue just stared, watching them go.

"What the hell just happened?" Blue asked.

"I don't know, but let's never speak of it again," Saylee muttered. "C'mon, the mastermind's still around here somewhere…"

{}

_Something that's probably well known to anyone who read _After Armageddon _from its early chapters is that I typo. A lot. It's one of the reasons that I am eternally grateful to have a beta now, and eve before the beta sees them my dearest muse Key-chan sees them more or less as they're being written. I wrote a late-story chapter of _Blood and Bond_ very late at night and typo'd so much that we concluded that Lance is triplets. _

…_like I said, it was getting late._


	4. Charmed

_This takes place during the team's travels between Goldenrod and Ecruteak in _Blood and Bond._ Wendy- and Georgia-centric._

{}

"Oh, look!"

"Wendy, what's up?" Saylee asked as Wendy suddenly flitted sharply off of the path and towards the bottom of a tree. Hovering in placed, she began wedging something out of the bark using the tips of her stingers, before picking it up between her delicate hind legs.

"Lee, do you know what this is?" she asked, flying up to Saylee and dropping it into her hand. Saylee turned the object over in her hands, running a finger along its smooth surface. It was small, smooth and sharp, dirty white and slightly curved.

"I think it's a Meowth claw or something," Saylee said, rubbing her thumb over the rough broken end. "Some people think that holding one makes you faster."

"Does it really?" Georgia said with interest. The heavy Geodude was the slowest member of the team and sometimes lagged behind when they were travelling quickly.

"I think it's just a superstition," Saylee said with a smile, holding up the claw as Wendy fluttered closely again. "Do you want it back?"

"Actually…" Wendy plucked the claw out of Saylee's hand and flew over to Georgia. "Georgia, would you like it?"

"OI'd love it, oi would!" Georgia said happily, holding out her hand and smiling as Wendy dropped the claw into it. "Thank you, moi dear."

"Oh no, this is to thank you for always protecting me," Wendy said shyly. "It means a lot to me. It truly does."

"T'ain't no trouble, moi dear," Georgia said as they started to move on again. The two of them dropped back a little; Saylee was leading the way, Chip trotting along at her heels, while behind them Tobias kept trying to talk to Mary but was continually interrupted by Nider flirting with her. "Oi wouldn't want anythin' t'appen t'you. Gave me a roight froight, it did, when that stupit sod smashed you…"

"I do wish I was as strong as you," Wendy sighed mournfully. "I must seem so weak… you're made of _stone_. What on earth could even damage you?"

"It can be done, moi dear," Georgia said. "Don't worry if you can't 'andle a few stones, moi dear. Oi promise oi'll always be there t'andle 'em for you."She held out her hand. Wendy put her stinger in it.

"I should like that very much," she said, smiling.


End file.
